For when sane just isn’t good enough

25 things that annoys gamers about non-gamers

Games Radar has a fun little list of the 25 things about non-gamers that irritate and annoy gamers. I’m a gamer, so I recognize and identify with some of the items on this list. I’m sure glad that I’m not the poor sap who has to deal with a social life consisting of people who comprise the entire list. There are some gems on this list, for example:

#15 No, his name isn’t “Zelda.” It’s Link. Samus isn’t
“Metroid” and Pikachu isn’t “Pokemon.” Sometimes videogames – like
books, films and television – are complex enough to contain characters
with names separate from the title. Hard to believe, but true!

This list should strike deep to the hearts of all gamers out there who have to deal with difficult non-gamers (and I’m looking at one particular gamer friend of mine here). My condolences to you all.

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#2 Look who’s talking. If you spend most days building kitten orphanages and serving hot soup to homeless rainbows, then yes, you can tell us that gaming is “a waste of time.” If you sit on the couch instead – watching sports, voting for reality television or browsing celebrity gossip blogs – then please shut your hypocritical mouth

This became a HUGE fight for my dad and I back in the day because he would watch HOURS of the Golf Channel at a time, but if I played a game for an hour, it was a waste of time. At least I was interacting instead of just sitting there! He still doesn’t understand, and will give passive aggressive little “huffs” every time my husband and I talk about playing games.

Actually, that’s the zigact same reason I stopped watching TV…it’s not interactive enough. I’ve discovered I can’t sit in front of a screen just doing nothing anymore…my hands start itching for a controller at that point.

#8 Shush! If you don’t like people talking during movies, walking in front of the television screen or singing over your favorite songs, then – for the love of God – don’t interrupt us during a game’s cutscene. The alien, the dragon and the talking spellbook were having a very important conversation…

#20 Hold the eff on. Whatever you want from us, we can’t do anything until we save. No, really. No, nothing. You want to lose the last 45 minutes of your life, too? Then deal with it.

A friend of mine used to do this all the feckin time… feckin nob!!!
#23 Look up, damn you, look up! There are no enemies on the floor. There are no doors on the floor. There is no nothing on the floor. So why does every non-gamer spend every minute of every FPS zigzagging drunkenly into obstacles while staring, dumb and confused, at every pixel of every floor? Frustrating. Nauseating.

I don’t get too annoyed with the stuff that non-gamers do (we all did it at some point).

But one thing that does get to me (that I blame 90% on the game designers), is when a non-gamer/newbie just uses one move/punch/button throughout the game, esp. the one that says “whack everybody in the vicinity with one punch and do it repeatedly until you’re exhausted or the game’s finished”.

An example here is earlier versions of Final Fantasy. You could summon the espers like Iffrit and others and just whack everybody to death (although they have improved in recent games, they brought in weapons that can deal 9999 damage, which, in my opinion, is the same). This way you can go through the whole game without really having to build up your characters, use magic, evasion, etc.

Another example is Streetfighter 1, where you could do the spinning kick (called the Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku — yes, it’s on wikipedia) and the flying fist thing (called the Shoryuken). One of these on an opponent and the guy is flat, leading to rounds that ended in 1 or 2 seconds (I remember having a 2 second round myself). So you’d see gamers go about moving the joystick uncontrollably up and down and hitting high punch to get the punch in (although I do admit to being one of these for some time until I mastered the nuances of the game in SF 2).

I like subtlety and art in my games — sometimes non-gamers just don’t understand that. Hold on, lemme just fire up GTA IV and go whack some grannies subtly over the head repeatedly with a baseball bat.

#22 Games aren’t THAT immersive. If you could refrain from physically ducking, dodging, bobbing and weaving every single time a bullet is fired or a vehicle drives past the screen, you might look like less of a mental patient and, therefore, we might be willing to sit next to you again. Rest assured that when the Holodeck is finally invented, you can flop and flounce around as much as your heart desires.

Oi! Sometimes when something flies straight at the screen, you just instinctively duck, okay. I don’t even think that one should be on the list. 😦

And I agree, F, if you want to duck and bob and weave you should be perfectly entitled to. Where’s the fun in sitting there and just staring at a screen while pressing buttons? I thought it was supposed to be interactive?

Then again, I don’t think I ever had a console when I was living with my folks, so there was never the issue of them walking in front of the tv when I was playing a game 🙂

While reading the GamesRadar article, I found this collection of videos of idiot gamers. Most of the videos seem unavailable, but I found this one: number 7 of a really disgusting kid. For the quote below it “You said you’d get me a drink and you lied!”, listen from about 2: 25. The ultimate in rudeness, ingratitude, and lack of discipline.

Hah thats so true, i am so tired of older people calling all my Plush Pokemon toys pokemon, no matter which one I am playing with. I make video plays with my poke dolls and have them on youtube, they are pretty popular but whenever i show anyone older they all call the characters the same, pokemon.